CatePlusPlus

A Chrome extension that adds more features to CATe- a notification system for unresolved exercises in the time table- opens specs in new tab- furnished icons- dark mode

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Inspiration

CATe has been known to have quite an old interface. We thought it would be useful for Imperial students to have a hassle-free way of navigating CATe in a different setting. Chrome extensions are quite the trend nowadays and these are relatively easy to install. With this in mind, we set out to not only redesign CATe but as well as add a few more functionalities that an everyday student would find useful.

What it does

CATe++ changes the appearance and interface of CATe upon accessing the site.

Functionally,

  • it provides a way to highlight unfinished exercises in the timetable
  • it opens a new tab instead of downloading the spec, saving priceless memory and reducing clutter for students

Graphically,

  • it adopts a dark color scheme that is easy on the eyes
  • it creates a custom user interface rid of unnecessary information
  • it refurnishes a few icons to complement the overall theme

How we did it

HTML, Javascript (JQuery), CSS, and the Chrome extension API.

Difficulties

The overall lack of class assignments for any of the DOM elements on CATe makes for a rather difficult way to quickly modify the CSS and/or gather information.

What we learned

Perhaps the most striking thing is how important it is to plan ahead and coordinate well with teammates. With the pandemic, expressing ideas through code has not been the easiest. Learning the process of working remotely has been quite rough, but interesting. We look forward to gaining more experience with these types of interactions.

CATe is not actually as bad as described above. However, we simply don't agree with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality. Otherwise, how would we, humans, have progressed past Nokia 3310's?

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